Page 11 of The King has Fallen

“This isn’t n-necessary,” she said through chattering teeth after we’d been walking for a moment. “I would just w-walk where you showed me to walk.”

“Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll send a runner for another ball-gag,” I said sourly,pissed offthat I’d been saddled with this fucking complication at exactly the wrong time.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she snarled. “God forbid someone use clever words against your beefcake.”

“I only gag the obnoxious ones,” I shot back. “The rest make very different noises.” Her face went tight as I smiled. “Be grateful you’re inmyhands, not the King’s. He wasn’t lying when he said he’d gag you with his member.”

“And I wasn’t lying about biting it off.”

“So, you Fetch eat your males alive, do you? Presumably after the mating, otherwise they’re no use to you at all.”

“One could argue they never were,” she said dryly.

I shoved her a little into the next step.

“Are you Fetch descended from the spiders? I hear theJabayaeat their males. I suppose that would explain why you like the shadows so much.”

“Donotcompare me to those creatures of the dark—” she started, indignant.

“Don’t splutter,Jabaya. It doesn’t become you.”

“You laugh now, you fucking devil, but just wait until—”

Rage constricted my chest and I tightened my grip on her hair, dragging her to a halt and yanking her head back so she was bent backwards and looking up at me, her spine arched close to snapping, her eyes wide and teeth bared, glaring up at me.

“One more word and I will get the gag again, and this time if something stops you breathing, I won’t assist,” I snarled.

She couldn’t close her mouth properly because I had her stretched too far back, her breath tearing in and out of her throat. But even though she struggled against my grip, she didn’t say anything. And her face went two shades whiter.

With grim satisfaction I filed away the knowledge that something about being gagged—or perhaps the threat of suffocation—was a fearful prospect for her and growled in my throat.

“So youcankeep your tongue from flapping when you decide to. Good. We have only a short walk until—”

“General! General Handras!”

I looked up to find the original soldier I’d sent running, sprinting back towards me.

“They’ve delivered the cage, Sir,” he said, sliding to a halt at my side, panting, but bright-eyed. “They want to know if you understand the levers?”

“Yes,” I growled. “Tell them to leave it.”

He nodded, then took off running again and I smiled at his back, then smiled broader as I looked down at her, where she arched awkwardly back over my fist gripping her wrists. Her foot kept sliding out from under her.

“Your new home awaits, Fetch,” I spat, then pulled her upright again. “Keep your mouth shut and I might even give you a towel.”

My tent was only two minutes walk from where the soldier had found me, in the shade of a large tree that helped keep it cool in the heat of the day and sheltered the ground from rain as well. So soon I was pushing her ahead of me through the tent flap and into the much dimmer interior of my tent.

Normally it was my practice to keep things simple. Easy to pack and move at a moment’s notice. So all my things were kept in a very few trunks and chests, each small enough to be moved by one man, alone. But there was a very large bed taking up the back wall of the tent because Gault had insisted that all the high-ranking officers retain beds for sleeping, even though most of our men rolled themselves into furs on the ground at night, and only a portion had narrow hammocks or cots.

But Gault wouldn’t be without his comforts, and insisting that the higher among us had them as well obscured his own indulgence. I hated how it had come about, and the efforts the servants were forced to expend to move these things every weekor so. But not enough to reject the opportunity to rest on a mattress each night.

Other than the bed, there was a frame of thin, and folding screens for privacy which hid the crates of my clothing and armor. There was a small round basin that sat atop a tall wooden crate with a pitcher of water for washing, a table and two folding chairs just big enough to be used for a meal, a long trunk for my weapons, another for my books and maps. And now, nestled up against the side of the tent that was tight against the face of a sheer, stone cliff so it offered no freedom at all even if she cut through it, was a large, steel-framed cage.

“Home sweet home,” I muttered, then tossed her inside and had the door slammed closed and latched before she’d even found her way back to her feet.

~ YILAN ~

Melek threw me into the cage so abruptly, I ate dirt and was still stumbling back to my feet and turning to scan the space behind him when a thin towel hit me in the face, followed quickly by a heavy blanket, and… a small pillow of all things.

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